Abstracts
Abstract
This article examines the great age of corporal punishments in German-speaking lands to draw attention to the historical intersections between senses, disability, and social death. Between approximately 1400 and 1550, civic and territorial magistrates administered a wide variety of corporal punishments on subjects, including mutilating punishments such as blinding. This article sketches the history of judicial blinding through a close reading of the archival record from the free imperial city of Frankfurt am Main and contextualizes this evidence by reference to the practice in other sites across German-speaking lands. It explains the origins of judicial blinding, analyzes major patterns in how the punishment was administered, and interprets the age of judicial blinding as a long experiment in social death. To make this final interpretive argument, this article shows how those who suffered the punishment embodied the three major criteria associated with social death in modern theoretical discussions of the concept: loss of bodily integrity, loss of social identity, and loss of social networks. Throughout, analysis and interpretation bring together insights from early modern sensory history and disability history.
Keywords:
- Blindness,
- Disability,
- Corporal Punishment,
- Vision,
- Visual Culture,
- Germany,
- Frankfurt am Main,
- Social Death
Résumé
Le présent article examine la grande époque des châtiments corporels dans les pays germanophones en vue d’attirer l’attention sur les liens historiques entre les sens, le handicap et la mort sociale. Entre environ 1400 et 1550, les magistrats civiques et territoriaux ont administré une grande variété de châtiments corporels à leurs sujets, y compris des mutilations comme l’aveuglement. Cet article esquisse l’histoire de l’aveuglement judiciaire à travers une lecture attentive des archives de la ville impériale libre de Francfort-sur-le-Main, en contextualisant ces documents à la lumière des usages en vigueur dans différentes régions germanophones. Il explique les origines de l’aveuglement judiciaire, analyse les principales manières d’administrer le châtiment et interprète l’époque de l’aveuglement judiciaire comme une longue expérience sur la mort sociale. Pour étayer ce dernier argument interprétatif, l’article montre en quoi les condamnés réunissaient les trois principaux critères associés à la mort sociale, selon les discours théoriques modernes sur cette notion : la perte de l’intégrité corporelle, la perte de l’identité sociale et la perte des réseaux sociaux. Au fil de l’article, l’analyse et l’interprétation font appel à l’histoire sensorielle des premiers temps modernes et à l’histoire du handicap.
Mots-clés :
- Cécité,
- Handicap,
- Châtiment corporel,
- Vue,
- Culture visuelle,
- Allemagne,
- Francfort-sur-le-Main,
- Mort sociale
Appendices
Bibliography
- Austrian National Library, Cod. 2705.
- Bavarian State Library, Cgm 47.
- British Library, MS Add. 24946.
- Dresden Regional Library, Mscr. M 67; Mscr. M 68.
- Heidelberg University Library, Cpg. 730, fols. 51r-74v. At 52v-53v.
- Innsbruck Regional Museum, Cod. FB 32001.
- Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt am Main (ISG FM).
- H.02.01 [Bürgermeisterbücher], nos. 1–125.
- H.02.02 [Ratsprotokolle], no. 12.
- H.10.03 [Sanitätsamt], nos. 43–46, 113.
- H.15.33 [Strafenbuch], no. 13156.
- Karlsruhe Regional Library, Cod. Donauschingen 104.
- Büttner, Jan Ulrich, ed. “Der Heilige Gallus heilt einen Blinden.” In Dis/ability History der Vormoderne: Ein Handbuch, edited by Cordula Nolte, Bianca Frohne, Uta Halle, and Sonja Kerth, 459–62. Affalterbach: Didymos, 2017.
- Der Statt Franckenfurt erneuwerte Reformation. Frankfurt am Main: Rab & Feyerabend, 1578. https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1925.
- Des allerdurchleuchtigsten großmechtigsten vnüberwindtlichsten Keyser Karls des fünfften […] peinlich gerichts ordnung. Mainz: Schöffer, 1533.
- Ein Newes hochnutzlichs Buechlin. Strasbourg: Vogtherr, 1538.
- Fichard, Johann. Consiliorum. 2 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Feyerabend, Dack & Fischer, 1590.
- Fichard, Johann. Receptarum Sententiarum. Vols. 1–3. Frankfurt am Main: Rab & Feyerabend, 1568–69.
- Harris, Nigel, ed. The Light of the Soul: The Lumen anime C and Ulrich Putsch’s Das Liecht der sel. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007.
- Hoffmann, Conrad, ed. Quellen zur Geschichte Friedrichs des Siegreichen. Vol. 1. Munich: Franz, 1862.
- Kluge, Friedrich, ed. “Der Basler Betrügnisse, ca. 1450.” In Rotwelsch: Quellen und Wortschatz der Gaunersprache und der verwandten Geheimsprachen, edited by Friedrich Kluge, 8–16. Strasbourg: Trübner, 1901.
- Lersner, Achilles August. Chronica der weitberühmten freyen Reichswahl=und Wandels=Stadt Franckfurth am Mayn. 2 vols. Frankfurt am Main: Recksroth, 1706, 1734.
- Liber vagatorum. Pforzheim: Anselm, 1510.
- Rabb, Theodor, ed. A Sixteenth-Century Book of Trades: Das Ständebuch. Translated by Theodore Rabb. Palo Alto, CA: Society for the Promotion of Science and Scholarship, 2009.
- Radbruch, Gustav, ed. Die peinliche Gerichtsordnung Karls V. von 1532 (Carolina). Stuttgart: Reclam, 1960.
- Reformacion der Stat Franckenfort am Meine. Mainz: Schöffer, 1509.
- Scott, Tom, and Robert Scribner, eds. The German Peasants’ War: A History in Documents. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1991.
- Tengler, Ulrich. Laienspiegel. Augsburg: Otmar, 1509. https://mdz-nbn-resolving.de/details:bsb11068051.
- Von Schwarzenberg, Johann. Bambergische halßgerichts vnd rechtlich Ordenung. Mainz: Schöffer, 1510.
- Weigel, Hans. Habitus praecipuorum populorum tam virorum, quam foeminarum. Nuremberg: Weigel, 1577.
- Barasch, Moshe. Blindness: The History of a Mental Image in Western Thought. New York: Routledge, 2001.
- Baum, Jacob M. Reformation of the Senses: The Paradox of Religious Belief and Practice in Germany. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctv9b2vpt.
- Baum, Jacob M., and Marlene L. Eberhart. “Afterword: A Roundtable Discussion.” In Embodiment, Expertise, and Ethics in Early Modern Europe: Entangling the Senses, edited by Jacob M. Baum and Marlene L. Eberhart, 234–53. New York: Routledge, 2021.
- Boes, Maria R. Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Germany: Courts and Adjudicatory Practices in Frankfurt am Main, 1562–1696. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315574783.
- Bolt, David, and Robert McRuer, eds. A Cultural History of Disability. 6 vols. New York: Bloomsbury, 2020.
- Bond, Katherine. “‘Fashioned with Marvellous Skill’: Veils and the Costume Books of Sixteenth-Century Europe.” In Materialized Identities in Early Modern Culture, 1450–1750: Objects, Affects, Effects, edited by Susanna Burghartz, Lucas Burkart, Christine Göttler, and Ulinka Rublack, 325–68. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1w9m9f9.12.
- Bührer-Thierry, Geneviève. “‘Just Anger’ or ‘Vengeful Anger’: The Punishment of Blinding in the Early Medieval West.” In Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of Emotion in the Middle Ages, edited by Barbara Rosenwein, 75–91. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501718694-008.
- Büttner, Jan Ulrich. “Blindheit: Auges des Körpers und andere Sehweisen.” In Dis/ability History der Vormoderne: Ein Handbuch, edited by Cordula Nolte, Bianca Frohne, Uta Halle, and Sonja Kerth, 438–40. Affalterbach: Didymos, 2017.
- Büttner, Jan Ulrich. “Die Strafe der Blendung und das Leben blinder Menschen.” Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte 28 (2009): 47–72.
- Chipps-Smith, Jeffrey. Sensuous Worship: Jesuits and the Art of the Early Catholic Reformation in Germany. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
- Classen, Constance, ed. A Cultural History of the Senses. 6 vols. New York: Bloomsbury, 2018.
- Classen, Constance. “Engendering Perception: Gender Ideologies and Sensory Hierarchies in Western History.” Body & Society 3, no. 2 (1997): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X97003002002.
- Cockayne, Emily. “Experiences of the Deaf in Early Modern England.” Historical Journal 46 (September 2003): 493–510. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X03003121.
- Considine, John. Small Dictionaries and Curiosity: Lexicography and Fieldwork in Post Medieval Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198785019.001.0001.
- Coy, Jason. Strangers and Misfits: Banishment, Social Control, and Authority in Early Modern Germany. Leiden: Brill, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004161740.i-156.
- Deichert, Heinrich. “Zur Geschichte der peinlichen Rechtspflege im alten Hannover.” Hannoversche Geschichtsblätter 15 (1912): 97–175.
- Dülmen, Richard van. Theatre of Horror: Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Germany. Translated by Elisabeth Neu. Cambridge: Polity, 1990.
- Evans, Richard J. Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany, 1600–1987. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198219682.001.0001.
- Franco, Giuliano. “Bernardino Ramazzini’s De Morbis Artificium Diatriba on Workers’ Health: The Birth of a New Discipline.” Journal of UOEH 43, no. 3 (2021): 341–48. https://doi.org/10.7888/juoeh.43.341.
- Franz, Günther. Der deutsche Bauernkrieg. Munich: Berlin, 1935.
- Friedrichs, Christoph. “German Social Structure, 1300–1600.” In Germany: A New Social and Economic History, edited by Robert Scribner, 233–58. Vol. 1. London: Arnold, 1996.
- Frohne, Bianca. “Blindness: Diverse Approaches to a Complex Problem in the 15th and 16th Centuries.” In A Cultural History of Disability in the Renaissance, edited by Susan Anderson and Liam Haydon, 83–101. New York: Bloomsbury, 2020.
- Frohne, Bianca. Leben mit “kranckhait”: Der gebrechliche Körper in der häuslichen Überlieferung des 15. Und 16. Jahrhunderts. Affalterbach: Didymos, 2014.
- Frohne, Bianca. “Performing Dis/ability? Constructions of Infirmity in Late Medieval and Early Modern Life Writing.” In Infirmity in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Social and Cultural Approaches to Health, Weakness and Care, edited by Christian Krötzl, Katariina Mustakallio, and Jenni Kuuliala, 51–65. New York: Routledge, 2016. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315588469.
- Frohne, Bianca. “‘Scholastika ist plint’: Überlegungen zu einer Disability History der Vormoderne anhand familiengeschichtlicher Aufzeichnungen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts.” In Phänomene der Behinderung im Alltag: Bausteine zu einer Disability History der Vormoderne, edited by Cordula Nolte, 37–58. Affalterbach: Didymos, 2013.
- Göggelmann, Hans. “Das Strafrecht der Reichsstadt Ulm bis zur Carolina.” PhD diss., University of Tübingen, 1984.
- Gragson, Courtney. “The Disabled Female Body and Spirit: A Comprehensive Study of Justitia Sengers and Her Commentary on the 69th Psalm.” MA thesis, Texas Tech University, 2023.
- Greenfield, Kent Roberts. “Sumptuary Law in Nürnberg: A Study in Paternal Government.” PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1915.
- Groebner, Valentin. De/faced: The Visual Culture of Violence in the Later Middle Ages. Translated by Pamela Selwyn. New York: Zone, 2004.
- Groebner, Valentin. Who Are You? Identification, Deception, and Surveillance in Early Modern Europe. New York: Zone, 2007.
- Guenther, Lisa. Solitary Confinement: Social Death and Its Afterlives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816679584.001.0001.
- Hacke, Daniela, and Paul Musselwhite, eds. Empire of the Senses: Sensory Practices of Colonialism. Leiden: Brill, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004340640.
- Hahn, Philip. “The Emperor’s Boot, or: Perceiving Public Rituals in the Urban Reformation.” German History 35, no. 3 (September 2017): 362–80. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghx066.
- Hahn, Philip. “‘Rather back to Ceylon than to Swabia’: Global Sensory Experiences of Swabian Artisans in the Service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC).” In Embodiment, Expertise, and Ethics in Early Modern Europe: Entangling the Senses, edited by Jacob M. Baum and Marlene L. Eberhart, 206–25. New York: Routledge, 2021.
- Hamburger, Jeffrey. Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
- Hammond, Nicholas. The Powers of Sound and Song in Early Modern Paris. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.5325/j.ctv14gp0t8.
- Heal, Bridget. A Magnificent Faith: Art and Identity in Lutheran Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Hoffmann, Carl. “Der Stadtverweis als Sanktionsmittel in der Reichsstadt Augsburg zu Beginn der Neuzeit.” In Neue Wege strafrechtsgeschichtlicher Forschung, edited by Hans Schloss and Dietmar Willoweit, 193–237. Cologne: Böhlau, 1999.
- Howes, David, and Constance Classen. “Conclusion: Sounding Sensory Profiles.” In The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses, edited by David Howes and Constance Classen, 257–88. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.
- Hunt-Kennedy, Stefanie. Between Fitness and Death: Disability and Slavery in the Caribbean. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctvz0hcpp.
- Jay, Martin. “In the Realm of the Senses: An Introduction.” American Historical Review 116, no. 3 (April 2011): 307–15. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.116.2.307.
- Jütte, Robert. A History of the Senses: From Antiquity to Cyberspace. Translated by James Lynn. Cambridge: Polity, 2005.
- Knapp, Hermann. Das alte Nürnberger Kriminalrecht: Nach Rats-Urkunden Erlautert. Berlin: Guttentag, 1896.
- Koerner, Joseph. The Reformation of the Image. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
- Kohler, Josef. Studien aus dem Strafrecht. Vol. 2. Mannheim: Bensheimer, 1895.
- Koning, Jacob. Geschiedkundige Aanteekeningen, betrekkelijk de Lijfstraffelijke Regtsoeffening te Amsterdam. Amsterdam: van der Hey en Zoon, 1828.
- Koslofsky, Craig. “Branding on the Face in Early Modern Europe.” In Stigma: Marking Skin in the Early Modern World, edited by Katherine Dauge-Roth and Craig Koslofsky, 220–37. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2023. https://doi.org/10.5325/jj.6914775.14.
- Köstlin, Konrad, and Kai Detlev Sievers, eds. Das Recht der kleinen Leute: Beträge zur Rechtlichen Volkskunde: Festschrift für Karl-Sigismund Kramer zum 60. Geburtstag. Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1976.
- Králová, Jana. “What Is Social Death?” Contemporary Social Science 10, no. 3 (2015): 235–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2015.1114407.
- Kretschmer, Reinhold. Geschichte des Blindenwesens vom Altertum bis zum Beginn der allgemeinen Blindenbildung. Ratibor: Oberschlessische Gesellschaftsdruckerei, 1925.
- Kvicalova, Anna. Listening and Knowledge in Reformation Europe: Hearing, Speaking and Remembering in Calvin’s Geneva. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03837-3.
- Lascaratos, John, and S. Marketos. “The Penalty of Blinding during Byzantine Times: Medical Remarks.” Documenta Ophthalmologica 81, no. 1 (1992): 133–44. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00155023.
- Lindberg, David. Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.
- Lindgen, Eric. Die Breslauer Strafrechtspflege unter der Carolina: Beträge zur Geschichte der Stadt Breslau. Breslau: Priebatsch, 1939.
- Löther, Andrea. Prozessionen in Spätmittelalterlichen Städten: Politische Partizipation, obrigkeitliche Inszenierung, städtische Einheit. Cologne: Böhlau, 1999.
- Meinhardt, Karl-Ernst. “Das peinliche Strafrecht der freien Reichsstadt Frankfurt am Main im Spiegel der Strafpraxis des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts.” JD diss., Johann Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, 1957.
- Metzler, Irina. Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Impairment during the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–1400. New York: Routledge, 2006.
- Metzler, Irina. A Social History of Disability in the Middle Ages: Cultural Considerations of Physical Impairment. New York: Routledge, 2013.
- Meye, Albrecht. Das Strafrecht der Stadt Danzig von der Carolina bis zur Vereinigung mit der preussischen Monarchie. Gdańsk: Kafemann, 1935.
- Müller, Edwin. Das Strafrecht der früheren freien Reichsstadt Überlingen. Leipzig, 1911.
- Nolte, Cordula, Bianca Frohne, Uta Halle, and Sonja Kerth, eds. Dis/ability History der Vormoderne: Ein Handbuch. Affalterbach: Didymos, 2017.
- Nordenfalk, Carl. “The Five Senses in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 48 (1985): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/751209.
- Nordhoff-Behne, Hildegard. Gerichtsbarkeit und Strafrechtspflege in der Reichsstadt Schwäbisch-Hall set dem 15. Jahrhundert. Schwäbisch Hall: Eppinger, 1971.
- Paterson, Mark. Seeing with Hands: Blindness, Vision, and Touch after Descartes. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474405317.001.0001.
- Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
- Pietschmann, Klaus, and Steven Rozenski. “Singing the Self: The Autobiography of the Fifteenth-Century German Singer and Composer Johannes von Soest.” Early Music History 29 (October 2010): 119–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261127910000082.
- Ransohoff, Jake. “Blinding as Punishment and Politics in Byzantium.” In A Global History of Crime and Punishment in the Medieval Age, edited by Karl Shoemaker, 71–92. London: Bloomsbury, 2023.
- Rau, Ferdinand. Beiträge zum Kriminalrecht der Freien Reichsstadt Frankfurt am Main im Mittelalter bis 1532. Potsdam: Krämer, 1916.
- Roper, Lyndal. Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe. New York: Routledge, 1994. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203426296.
- Roth, Michael. An Eye for an Eye: A Global History of Crime and Punishment. London: Reaktion, 2015.
- Rublack, Ulinka. Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Rublack, Ulinka. “The Right to Dress: Sartorial Politics in Germany, c. 1300–1750.” In The Right to Dress: Sumptuary Laws in a Global Perspective, c. 1200–1800, edited by Giorgio Riello and Ulinka Rublack, 37–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108567541.002.
- Schindler, Georg. Verbrechen und Strafen im Recht der Stadt Freiburg im Breisgau von der Einführung des neuen Stadtrechts bis zum Übergang an Baden (1520–1806). Freiburg im Breisgau: Kommissionsverlag der Fr. Wagnerschen Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1937.
- Schindler, Norbert. Rebellion, Community and Custom in Early Modern Germany. Translated by Pamela Selwyn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
- Schubert, Ernst. Räuber, Henker, arme Sünder: Verbrechen und Strafe im Mittelalter. Darmstadt: Primus, 2007.
- Schwerhoff, Gerd. Köln im Kreuzverhör: Kriminalität, Herrschaft und Gesellschaft in einer frühneuzeitlichen Stadt. Bonn: Bouvier, 1991.
- Scribner, Robert. Religion and Culture in Germany (1400–1800). Edited by Lyndal Roper. Leiden: Brill, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004476578.
- Smith, Mark M. A Sensory History Manifesto. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271092737.
- Smith, Pamela H. “Art, Science, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe.” Isis 97, no. 1 (March 2006): 83–100. https://doi.org/10.1086/501102.
- Smith, Pamela H. The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
- Spierenburg, Pieter. The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression: From a Preindustrial Metropolis of the European Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
- Tullett, William. “State of the Field: Sensory History.” History 106 (December 2021): 804–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.13246.
- Van Eickels, Klaus. “Gendered Violence: Castration and Blinding as Punishment for Treason in Normandy and Anglo-Norman England.” Gender & History 16, no. 3 (November 2004): 588–602. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0953-5233.2004.00357.x.
- Wandel, Lee Palmer. Always among Us: Images of the Poor from Zwingli’s Zurich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
- Wegert, Karl. “The Social Context of State Terror in Early Modern Germany.” Canadian Journal of History 26, no. 1 (1991): 21–42. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjh.26.1.21.
- Weygand, Zina. The Blind in French Society from the Middle Ages to the Century of Louis Braille. Translated by Emily-Jane Cohen. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvqsdxb3.
- Wheatley, Edward. Stumbling Blocks before the Blind: Medieval Constructions of a Disability. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.915892.
- Zika, Charles. “Hosts, Processions and Pilgrimages: Controlling the Sacred in Fifteenth-Century Germany.” Past & Present 118, no. 1 (February 1988): 25–64. https://doi.org/10.1093/past/118.1.25.